President Donald Trump arrives before delivering the State of the Union address in the chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives at the U.S. Capitol Building on February 5, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Zach Gibson/Getty Images)

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Features » February 6, 2019

Trump Is Not an Isolationist—Just Listen to His SOTU

Trump wants to expand U.S. dominance and empire—and he has little resistance in Congress.

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The U.S. goal is to dominate the region through its proxies in Israel and in the pro-American governments of most states in the Middle East.

Alongside the chants of “U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A!” in which both Democrats and Republicans participated, President Donald Trump’s State of the Union (SOTU) address revealed a deep truth. The Trump administration is not, as a wide range of media outlets have claimed, isolationist. Rather, it is simply re-adjusting strategies for achieving and maintaining a violent U.S.-led global capitalist hegemony, which should not be mistaken for abandoning the project.

Trump repeatedly bemoaned the involvement of the United States in “foolish wars.” Yet, he also boasted of his administration’s massive increases to the military budget, which came in at $717 billion for 2018 and are slated to include another $750 billion in 2019.

He took credit for the supposedly impending withdrawal of U.S. ground forces from Syria and drawdown of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. But he bragged about exiting the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) that the United States signed in 1987 with then-Soviet Russia to curtail the two countries’ nuclear build-ups and reduce the risk of nuclear war. Trump said that if the United States and Russia can’t agree to a new version of the INF, possibly one that includes China, America will “outspend and out-innovate all others by far,” suggesting a willingness to re-start an arms race. While he correctly identified a war on the Korean peninsula as undesirable, evidently a nuclear confrontation with Russia doesn’t constitute a “foolish war.”

The political center of gravity of the speech showed an unwavering commitment to imperial fiat. In his SOTU, Trump reiterated his imperial decree that the president of Venezuela is parliamentarian Juan Guaidó. “Two weeks ago, the United States officially recognized the legitimate government of Venezuela, and its new interim President, Juan Guaidó. We stand with the Venezuelan people in their noble quest for freedom,” Trump said to bipartisan applause, despite the fact that 80 percent of Venezuelans had never heard of Guaidó until two weeks ago.

Trump went on to claim that the Venezuelan government’s “socialist policies have turned that nation from being the wealthiest in South America into a state of abject poverty and despair.” Yet, illegal sanctions enacted by the United States, European Union and Canada have played a critical role in Venezuela’s current crisis. These sanctions have also led to the deaths of Venezuelan citizens, according to both a United Nations special rapporteur and FUNDALATIN, a Venezuelan human rights group with special consultative status at the UN.

White House National Security Advisor John Bolton left no doubt about U.S. motives for involvement in Venezuela when he toldFox Business last month that regime change would be good for American business interests. Florida Senator Marco Rubio, one of the key players in the effort to overthrow Maduro, also cited alleged benefits to the U.S. economy as a justification for U.S. involvement.

The imperial diktats Trump issued in last night’s address didn’t end in Latin America: They extended all the way to the Middle East. He claimed his administration “has acted decisively to confront the world's leading state sponsor of terror: the radical regime in Iran,” despite the total lack of evidence for such a characterization of the Iranian government. “To ensure this corrupt dictatorship never acquires nuclear weapons,” Trump continued, “I withdrew the United States from the disastrous Iran nuclear deal.”

Trump declined to note that, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, there was never any “credible evidence” that Iran was working on a nuclear weapons program. Democrats declined to cheer these comments, presumably because the Iran nuclear deal is generally seen as one of the Obama administration’s signature foreign policy achievements.

Trump celebrated inflicting on Iran what he called “the toughest sanctions ever imposed on a country,” measures with devastating effects on Iranian civilians. The efforts to crush Iran and Venezuela are connected. Officials in the Trump administration toldThe Wall Street Journal that the gambit in Venezuela is not only about U.S. efforts to remake that country but also all of Latin America, particularly the left-wing governments of Nicaragua and Cuba with whom Venezuela has partnered. The paper reports that the Trump government is worried about “[r]ecent inroads made by Russia, China and Iran” in Latin America and that “[p]art of why U.S. officials express concern about Iran’s influence in the region is that Iran is a major backer of Hezbollah, and its South American operations are a significant source of cash.”

Alongside his bluster toward supposed enemy states, Trump also boasted about his administration’s decision to move the United States’ Israeli embassy to Jerusalem and declare the city Israel’s capital—a long-time goal of the U.S. Right. That maneuver served as a key plank in the administration’s efforts to permanently smash Palestinian aspirations through what Trump calls “the ultimate deal,” a plan to isolate the Palestinians regionally—and compel them to pretend that a discontiguous, non-sovereign fraction of the West Bank constitutes a state and surrender the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes.

The U.S. goal is to dominate the region through its proxies in Israel and in the pro-American governments of most states in the Middle East. For that to happen, the dispossession of the Palestinians has to be normalized so that friendships between Israel and other U.S. allies in the region can deepen, a process that has been underwayfor years. Such a pro-U.S. regional bloc could weaken the forces American planners and their Middle Eastern partners see as obstacles, namely Iran and its allies, particularly Hezbollah. One of those pro-U.S. dictatorships, Saudi Arabia, was conspicuously absent from the SOTU as was the murderous war that the United States, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are continuing to carry out (with Canadian and British complicity) against Yemen.

A number of the Democrats recently elected to Congress seem to see through the mainstream media’s conception of Trump’s administration as “isolationist,” and a few have pushed back on aspects of U.S. imperialism. California Rep. Ro Khanna rejected U.S. meddling in Venezuela, and Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar tweeted that “A US-backed coup in Venezuela is not a solution to the dire issues they face. Trump's efforts to install a far right opposition will only incite violence and further destabilize the region.” Omar and Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib have both been outspoken in their criticism of U.S. policy toward Israel.

However, these voices remain a minority in the Democratic caucus. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) applauded almost all of Trump’s imperial sabre-rattling during the SOTU. If the U.S. war machine is going to be reined in, the driving force will have to come from outside of Congress. It certainly won’t come from the White House.

The policy towards Maduro could have something to do with growing involvement of China, Russia and possibly Iran in South America. The Trump administration could unleash a Latin American Spring. Then the US could have a real border problem! Already the two major regional powers, Brazil and Mexico, are lining up on opposing sides regards Venezuela. Like the Arab Spring it has all the potential to spread chaotically. Events in the Middle East haven’t gone to plan, with devastating consequences for the populations there, even having a destabilizing effect on Europe.Events in South America, the Middle East, the South China Sea, Europe, all seem to be fulfilling a pattern of history – pointing to world war. (Never Forget the Ghosts of History – WordPress).

Posted by peter mcloughlin on 2019-02-11 07:19:27

Sweden, Norway, Denmark, do well with "S".

Posted by 6384601 on 2019-02-09 10:05:29

It is the same leadership that pushes these actions, Obama overthrew one central American country and later trump gave his blessing for the change. Our sanction games hurts the average citizen of the country we sanction. We want control and the sweet news we spread is just fake. All I hear is need for gun control but the reality is that 80% of all gun deaths in the US are gang related. The majority of gun deaths in Mexico and Central America are gang related. Even in Canada there are cities that show 70% of all gang deaths are gang related. The US government is the major supplier of weapons for the governments in Mexico and Central America and this is the major source of weapons for the drug gangs. .With all of the funding we have spent in Central America one would expect to see an upgrade of the living standards less game playing by their leadership. We demand standards from one country but allow the other friends to slide on human rights. It is interesting in that we deport street gangs but to their home country and later class the gang as a terror group. Why were they not called a terror group while in the US. We pick the leadership, the people do not and if they pick someone we do not want we play games to destroy the economy of that country. The gangs have ripped the fabric of many of these countries and the sad fact is that if the gangs favor us our government will help them. The Contra Freedom fighters used profit from drug sales in the US to operate. Our CIA created and observed the drug pathway from Central America to the major cities of the US. Our country was the major supplier of intel programs for many governments, yet these programs all had a special backdoor that allowed our government to listen. We mess with their leadership, we mess with their business and we mess with their election process. Good points, we cry when a group tries to mess with our system yet we have no issue when we do it.

Posted by 6384601 on 2019-02-09 10:02:40

You cannot understand the opposition to Trump...As Trump institutes a conservative agenda of rape and plunder on America and world domination on everyone else...Wake up dude.

Posted by Charles Misfeldt on 2019-02-07 11:47:37

"Isolationism" There is a huge difference between cooperating between nations in a mutually beneficial way and strong arming nations based on profit, religion, race and exploitation.

Posted by Charles Misfeldt on 2019-02-07 11:45:07

I would like to thank "In These Times" for providing a substantive argument. Instead of just allegation and accusation without support (we see you CNN) - you provide support. Refreshing.

I could disagree with a number of point based on the merits and not be accused of being a racist or fill-in-the-blank phobe. There is hope yet!!

On Iran, you state "despite the total lack of evidence for such a characterization of the Iranian government." Did Hezbollah drop from the sky? When they chant that the US is the great Satan, does that really mean "We just want to get along?"

In Venezuela, were the sanctions the ONLY reason the country is in the pits? Did the kleptocracy of Chavez and Maduro have just a little bit to do with it?

Socialism requires that important decisions be made by the government, for fairness after all. While your small business owner is waiting for the government to make these economic decisions, what does he do to feed his family? In a free market, thousands if not millions of these economic decisions are made daily. For every bad (or evil) decision, there are thousands of good decisions that result in wealth creation (not redistribution) and the provision of goods and services to those who need/want them. In Socialism, you wait for the government to tell you what you can and can't do, and starve in the process (see Soviet Union).

I am kind of scratching my head at the opposition to Trump. He is not in the "economic hit man/central bank" crowd, hence their attempt to use the MSM to destroy him. I would think that a true anti-establishment publication would have a more sophisticated and nuanced approach, or am I giving you more credit than you deserve?